Walter Zacharius | Romance publisher, 87

Walter Zacharius, 87, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corp. into a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres, died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in New York.

Mr. Zacharius emerged from the world of true-confession magazines and paperback fiction to found Kensington in 1974 with Roberta Grossman. Beating the bushes for new writers willing to start cheap, they developed the careers of prolific authors such as Janelle Taylor and Katherine Stone.

As it expanded the romance genre to paranormal romance, adult western romance, and romance titles aimed at Hispanic, black, and gay readers, Kensington branched out into new forms of distribution. Mr. Zacharius signed deals with Wal-Mart, sold his books on the shopping network QVC, and saw the potential of e-books.

Through its Zebra, Dafina, Brava, Encanto, and other imprints, Kensington publishes about 450 fiction and nonfiction books a year in a wide variety of genres. Although about 60 percent of its list is devoted to titles such as A Little Bit Sinful, it has also published I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max and Iacocca, the autobiography of the Chrysler executive Lee Iacocca.

With sales of $70 million, the company is the largest independent publisher of mass-market titles in the United States. Zebra Books, the company's sole imprint until the late 1980s, became known for its embossed covers, with a lurid "sunset" palette of purples, pinks, and oranges.

In 1988, Kensington began publishing hardcover books, placing two memoirs on the best-seller list that year: On the Outside Looking In, by Michael Reagan, the adopted son of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, and The Duke of Flatbush, by Brooklyn Dodgers star Duke Snider.

Songbird, a novel by Mr. Zacharius based on the wartime experiences of a Polish Jewish woman he met in Paris, was published in 2004 and later retitled The Memories We Keep. - N.Y. Times News Service